Latest ipad blogs

Lot's of news to post up on, and I played at least one new game this week. Shoot the Zombirds created by Infinite Dreams (Jelly Defense, Can Knockdown), is target practice in Halloween-land (if there was such a place), a second variation to Shoot the Birds. Also posting a rewind review on Chromian Wars 1.2 as they updated their app after our initial feedback. Both games are worth a look. For the news: a new expansion pack coming for the top 3-D space shooter, Galaxy on Fire 2 (probably my most played game any week); a new turn-based strategy game called LostStar Tactics (from the creators of Staunch Defense); and speaking of exciting new TD, just out, Defender Chronicles II! Whew, that's alot, so let's dig in, shall we...

First The Daily reported in February that Microsoft Office was being developed for the iPad and even included photos. Then Microsoft denied it. Now BGR is reporting that Microsoft is set to release Office for the iPad and Android tablets in November. According to the earlier report in The Daily, the suite will let you create and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files both locally and online. BGR says that it's possible the suite will also be coming to the iPhone. I think the appearance of Office for the iPad will be a major step in the increasing adoption of the iPad in the enterprise.

Every weekend we will be raffling off tons of great apps and accessories for FREE. Here's how it works: Every Friday we will announce the prizes being given away through iPhoneLife.com, Facebook, and Twitter. To enter the giveaway, go toiPhoneLife.com/giveaways. On Monday morning we will randomly select the winners. If you win an app, we will email you the promo code to redeem the app for free. If you win an accessory, we will mail it to you.

Every now and then a sale comes through the App store that you just do not want to miss. Last year around Christmas, both Gameloft and EA had huge sales on all of their hits, dropping prices for many top games to as low as .99 cents. Now, in honor of Memorial Day EA (Electronic Arts) is again having a similar sale.

Well, I guess you won't know unless you try it. And ZooGue tried it. They froze an iPad inside a block of ice to see if it would still work. And it did. As far as I can tell, the video is unrelated to the iPad cases that ZooGue makes, but is simply meant to draw attention to their offer of free cases. You only pay shipping.

What's bigger than an iPhone, smaller than a MacBook, and the most anticipated Apple product since the original iPhone? On January 27, at a special invitation only event at the San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Steve Jobs announced Apple's new "magical, revolutionary product" -- the iPad. Meant to fill the gap between the laptop and phone, Jobs said it was "way better" than either. Let's take a look at it.

Thin, lightweight, and powerful

The iPad shares many hardware features with the iPhone, including an accelerometer, an orientation sensor to switch from portrait to landscape mode, solid-state memory, and the same 30-pin doc connector. Connectivity is also virtually the same, with wireless 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR included on all models.

iPad runs iPhone apps!

The iPad will run a version of iPhone OS, and the new device can run virtually any app developed for the iPhone or iPod touch. Aps developed for the iPhone can run on the iPad in native resolution but is large enough to touch type on.

The larger screen not only makes familiar iPhone apps like Calendar, Mail, and Safari look stunning, it also provides screen real estate for more complex elements in the UI. For example, Calendar display a split-sreen view that describes the day's appointments on the left and shows you a color map of used time slots on the right. The split-screen view in Contacts displays you contacts list on the left and the full information for the contact you've selected on the right.

An ebook reader and more

Although not build into the iPad, Apple will offer a free app called iBooks, which will allow you to download and read books from it's new virtual bookstore. The new iBooks store will be accessed from and as easy to use as iTunes.

The ultimate media device?

The iPad is not the world's first tablet PC or the first eBook reader. Toshiba, Lenovo, Acer, and others sell Windows-based tablets, and Amazon has had considerable success with it's Kindle. But Apple thinks the iPad will reinvent the category by offering a vastly superior multi-touch interface an easy access to a wide-variety of apps and media via iTunes. Aple hopes to make the iPad the ultimate media device by leveraging it's existing assets which include over 100 million paying iTunes customers, established relationships with music and video content providers, and over 100,000 iPhone OS app developers.